He Had More Trouble with that One Rock than All the Rest of the Canyon
by Crescent Moon Dancer
Summary: What if Jeff had used his revolver when he first walked in the door, instead of going for the shotgun on the wall? Would things have turned out differently? (Based on the 1950 western The Sundowners. MAJOR spoilers.)
1. Author's Note

**Hey everybody, Crescent Moon here with another little fanfic. :)** **This is how The Sundowners should have begun in my opinion. Of course, then the movie would only be, at most, fifteen minutes long, so...yeah. XD Anyway, this is my take on it, and I tried to cram as many references from other parts of the movie into the second and last parts of this story as I could. (Saves me the trouble of coming up with something original, ha ha!) I lifted as much of the dialogue as I could, and...eh, I'm probably just monologuing at this point, who really reads the author's notes? I'll shut up and let y'all get to the story now. XD Enjoy! :)**


	2. He Had More Trouble With that One Rock

A pitch black, half-smoked cigarette landed on the stove, scattering ash across the rough, iron surface. Tom Cloud's spine stiffened, but he didn't look around as he picked it up and threw it in the fire. "You don't have to strike up no band, I know you're here," he said flatly.

"It's nice to find you still know me, anyway," a cheerful voice answered. There was a thin vein of danger running under the tone, and Tom's gut clenched.

"I know you better than anybody else in the world," he returned evenly. The man behind him - known to his enemies as Kid Wichita and his friends...well, he had none - grinned.

"You've got yourself cooked up in a real slum-gullion, ain't ya?" he remarked, casually slinging his saddle off his shoulder and hanging his rifle on the wall. For some reason, he sounded perfectly delighted with the notion of trouble.

Tom's skin crawled, but he kept his voice calm.

"Have I?"

"I heard about how they run your foreman over the big divide with his shirt tail flyin'." Still in that infuriatingly bright voice. "Last man you had, too, they tell me." The rancher finally turned away from the stove to face the man behind him. He was just the way Tom remembered him: Same black shirt and blue jacket, same black hat, same mustache, same careless smile and cold, cold eyes. And the same knack for nosing out, jumping on, and exacerbating Tom's troubles. He scowled.

"How long you been snoopin' around here?" he demanded. Kid walked over to a board shelf nailed to the wall and started fiddling with the knickknacks piled thereon.

"This all the pipes you got?" he inquired disapprovingly. Tom felt an acute stab of irritation.

"I said how long?" he repeated sharply. The other man stuck a pipe in his mouth and helped himself to the can of tobacco.

"Oh, mebbe ten days," he said, as if it didn't matter. Sitting down on the bed, he flashed a cheeky half-smile at Tom, who was slowly approaching. "You know, it's a marvel to me how you never seem to know what goes on." He opened the can, scooping out some filling for his pipe. "I bet you don't spend hardly any time in the back rooms of saloons, do ya?" Tom leaned on the end of the metal bed frame, glaring at him.

"Not too much," he responded in a quiet, scornful voice. Kid seemed singularly unperturbed at his host's hostile tone.

"You see how ignorant it makes a man to live cultivated the way you do?" There was scorn in his merry voice, too; the scorn of a bandit or rogue disdaining the manners of a decent human. The Arizona rancher's blood boiled, but not for a moment did his composure slip as Kid talked on.

"Why, I haven't worked this range for nearly seven years - yet I know more about what's happenin' on it than you do." He looked quite smug about it, and Tom wanted nothing more than to knock his teeth out and send him on his way - belly up or belly down, it didn't much matter to him right then. Still, he controlled himself as his uninvited guest continued to rub his nose in it.

"It's a lucky thing for you I happened to be passin' through," he said. Tom smiled, though not in a friendly way.

"And you'll keep right on passin' through, too," he said quietly. His tone of voice brooked no argument. Unfortunately, Kid was in an argumentative mood. _Isn't he always,_ Tom thought bitterly.

His guest cut him a sideways glance. "Will you kill me if I don't?" he inquired in amusement, lighting his pipe. The rancher straightened up, staring down at the other man with hooded eyes.

"You know," he said slowly, "someday it might come to that." Kid just laughed and flicked out his match.

"There ain't a thing you can do about me, and you know it perfectly well," he said calmly, his dark eyes glittering.

Every muscle in Tom's body clenched. "What is it you want?" he asked, injecting as much cold hostility into the words as he could. The other man looked thoughtful.

"Well, tonight I want to take a little ride; just checkin' up on a guess. You want the man who killed Juan," he said, referring to the dead ranch hand that Tom's younger brother, Jeff, had found earlier that day. "If my guess is right, I'll put him right in the sights of your gun." He gazed steadily at Tom, the perpetual half-smile still playing around his face. "You wanna come?" Tom stared stonily back, and he gave his head a tiny shake.

"No," he answered quietly, venomously. "I don't want any part of anything you do." Kid's smile widened, as if he'd expected nothing else from Tom Cloud. He started to say something else, but instead pricked up his ears and looked towards the door. Tom followed his gaze, watching as Jeff galloped into the yard and flung his lanky form off his horse, loping up to the door.

"Tom, I talked to-" He halted in the doorway, staring in shock at the intruder, who nodded to him calmly.

"Hi Jeff," he said smoothly. Tom's eighteen-year-old brother stared at Kid for a moment longer, then his hand flashed down and up, faster than Tom could blink. Four shots rang out in quick succession, and then all was quiet.

* * *

The gun smoke slowly cleared, and Tom took quick stock of the the results of the little drama. Kid Wichita was dead, laid out on the bed with three scarlet stains rapidly spreading over his black shirt, his gun still resting in his limp hand. Jeff was leaning up against the door frame, clutching his left shoulder. The revolver clattered from his nerveless hand, and he gazed at the body stretched out on his mother's quilt.

"I killed him," he said blankly. "He's dead, I killed him..." His voice trailed off and he flinched, gripping his arm. His knees gave out, and he slid down the wall. Tom was at his side in two quick steps, stripping off the blue denim jacket and surveying the wounded area.

"Just the one arm, kid?" he asked, his voice full of gentle concern.

"Just one?" Jeff was beginning to pant as the pain intensified, and he coughed weakly. "Ain't it plenty?" His brother gave a small smile in spite of himself.

"Yeah, it's plenty," he said quietly, peeling the bloody shirt off the boy. The bullet, he saw, had lodged between Jeff's shoulder and chest - a bit closer to his heart than Tom liked.

Easing his younger brother to the floor, he went over to the bed and unbuckled the dead man's belt, yanking it off of him and returning to Jeff. "This is pretty near gonna kill you, kid," he said as he gently pulled the boy's arm over his stomach.

"Never mind that," Jeff said huskily. Tom passed the belt under his brother's body, pinning the injured arm to his side. Jeff grimaced, his eyes squeezed shut against the pain as the older Cloud cinched the belt tight.

"Let's get you into town to the doctor," he said, helping the boy sit up. "I can't take that lead out of you, it's gone too deep."

"What about him?" Jeff inquired, nodding to Kid's body on the bed. Tom spared it only a brief glance.

"We'll take care of him later," he said. Jeff looked at his older brother, his sweaty face blazing.

"I'm not sorry that I killed him," he said. His voice was weak but steady, with a hint of steel running underneath. "I'm glad I did!" Tom patted his uninjured shoulder.

"I know kid, I know," he said quietly. "I'm glad you did too. Now come on, let's go, before you bleed to death." He pulled his younger brother to his feet and led him outside, helping him onto the still-saddled horse. "Try not to fall off," he said as he went to close the door of their small house. Glancing inside briefly, his eyes fell on the dead man once more, but he turned away, pulling the door shut, and mounted the horse behind Jeff. He wrapped an arm around the wounded boy and gave the horse a firm nudge with his heels, wheeling it around and heading for town.

* * *

A week later, Sam Beers came to the Clouds' ranch to visit, as he was accustomed to do. "Tom!" he called as he clambered off his horse. "Tom, have you heard the news..." His voice trailed off as he caught sight of a wooden plank sticking in the ground by the house. Pushing his hat back, he squinted at the words scratched roughly onto it:

 _Here I buried my brother, James Cloud, alias Kid Wichita._

The old man stared at the grave marker, not even blinking, until the sound of the door opening and Tom's voice shook him out of his frozen state.

"Morning Sam. What brings you here?" Sam looked up at his neighbor, ambling forward.

"Thought you mightn't 'a' heard," he said. "Earl Boyce died day before yeste'day. He was knocking Mrs. Boyce around when he just gave a little gasp an' died. Doc said it was a heart attack." Tom's jaw clenched, then he smiled grimly.

"Serves him right for treating Kathleen that way," he remarked, making a mental note to propose to her once she was well past any grief she might be experiencing - although if there was any at all, it wouldn't be much. "Won't you come in?" he added, opening the door wider.

"Was aimin' to," Sam said, unabashed. "I came to see how Jeff was doin'."

"He's a little better now that the fever's passed, but still too weak to get out of bed," Tom said. "He says he's perfectly alright, but I'm trusting the doctor's word over that of a young kid too hot-headed to know when to lie still."

"Well now, I reckon he's just not used to bein' idle," Sam said as he followed the younger man inside. "Tom, that piece o' wood outside..." The rest of his question was lost to the outside world as Tom closed the door of the small Arizona ranch house.

* * *

The wind howled around the canyon, swirling around one rock in particular. Somewhere, it seemed, a jovial, cheeky voice was singing.

 _"There's a day in the life of O'Riley. To O'Riley night and day are the same..."_

Then it faded, and all that could be heard was the hot desert wind, whistling it's way through the dusty canyon.


End file.
